This invention relates generally to medical imaging systems, and more particularly, to systems that display images resulting from scans performed by medical imaging systems.
Medical analysis and diagnosis is often performed with medical imaging system having displays to display the results of a scan of a patient. Analysis of the images can be very time sensitive or critical with added time possibly resulting in increased risk to the patient due to the patient condition. This added time can result in increased risk of permanent injury or death. For example, a brain attack is a time critical patient condition where every minute counts. Accordingly, rapidly determining the appropriate diagnosis and treatment path is often critical and can reduce the chances of permanent injury or death. In particular, for a patient showing signs of a possible stroke, it is important to quickly determine whether there is brain hemorrhaging. Increased time in diagnosis can increase the likelihood of permanent injury. If the diagnosis is not correct, for example, if there is no stroke and a patient is given a stroke treatment, serious harm and death can result. Improper diagnosis can lead to improper treatment. Thus, fast and robust diagnosis and appropriate patient treatment helps to ensure improved patient outcomes.
Known methods for displaying medical image data to analyze for diagnosing a patient can be difficult to view or navigate, thereby increasing the time for diagnosis. For example, due to the basic complexity of some anatomical regions, such as the brain, existing segmentation techniques do not allow for a clean visualization. Similarly, these systems display a single image in time and may not provide the clinician with all of the information needed for a proper diagnosis. The clinician often has to view different images, which may be on different screens or may not be able to be viewed simultaneously. This increases the difficulty in reviewing and analyzing the images, thereby increasing the time for a proper diagnosis.
Thus, known methods and systems for displaying medical images can be difficult to navigate and review. Further, these system can be cumbersome or awkward to use, further adding time before a proper diagnosis. This added time can result in serious consequences.